


The Blood Stained Shores

by AlexSmithxox



Series: The Tale of Ronan [2]
Category: Arthurian Nights (D&D Campaign), Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types, Original Work
Genre: Arthurian legend - Freeform, Child Death, D&D, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Dungeons & Dragons Campaign, Everyone is Dead, Minor Character Death, Selkies, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27480895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexSmithxox/pseuds/AlexSmithxox
Summary: The island sees another family torn apart by fear and hatred. However, many more are caught in the crossfire.TW: death of a child.
Series: The Tale of Ronan [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1975621





	The Blood Stained Shores

**Author's Note:**

> This is why you don't tell your kinda racist human boyfriend that you are not human.

The Blood Stained Shores

* * *

Bodies littered the shore. 

Some were so desecrated by the fierce mob that they were no longer recognizable, not even by one who had known their features for decades. Others were so painfully familiar that they looked just as they had moments before being slain, the only evidence of death being their bleeding wounds and glazed over eyes that bore into the last surviving member of their tribe.

Some no longer had all limbs attached to their torso. Some had their mouths open in a silent call for help. Some had their arms raised as though to protect themselves against a now invisible threat. Some were laid close to one another with hands intertwined and eyes closed in acceptance. Some were one way and some were another, but all were lifeless on the sand. 

Over twenty bodies were laid out on the beach and in the center sat the sole survivor, a young man, clutching the still corpse of a child. 

The corpses surrounded the two in the shape of a halo, a parody of Lugh’s divine grace. The sun was setting and its low position in the sky was forcing long shadows to be cast behind the fallen. Their twisted black shapes covered and consumed the earth while leaving an oppressing tone of finality. Darkness crept up and yet the stars shone brightly like the raging fires of torches. The massacre was over. 

It hit him like a punch to the chest. The adrenaline was gone and the oxygen seemed to have left his lungs, suffocating him in his panic. There was nothing left, no one left. There was just him. His hands unconsciously flexed, digging into the small body in his grasp. With hastened breath and hesitant eyes, he looked down at the child. 

The child’s eyes were a milky white as opposed to the brilliant blue that they had been a few hours ago. The limp body had been in his grasp so long that it was starting to stiffen with the beginnings of rigor mortis. Soft pale skin had taken on an even lighter complexion as the rest of the blood slowly drained out of the open wound in the abdomen. It was nearly the length of his forearm with jagged edges of the skin ripped open to expose what should have been kept inside and the dark color of crusting blood. The blood had stained his hands all the way up to his elbows and had made its way onto his lap, there was also a spattering of it on his right cheek from when the child spoke her final words. 

’ _Deartháir...Níl ach braon...beag fola ort._ ’

How often had he said the same thing to her? He remembered many times when she had either slipped on a surface while running or cut herself upon a sharp edge. He would tenderly sway with her in his arm as she sobbed, whispering those words into her brown hair. ‘ _There is only a little blood_ ,’ and saying assurances such as ‘ _do not fret_ ’ or ‘ _it was an accident_.’ She was the closest thing to a sister he had ever had in his life. 

Aoibh was only nine years old. So young, innocent, so blissfully unaware of the hatred found ashore nowadays. It was possible her birth-father had been among the forty or so land dwellers that made up the mob. She did not deserve this. She should have been up and splashing around in the tide pools while her mother struggled to wrangle her into having her hair plaited. At this moment she should have been begrudgingly shrugging on her pelt and slipping into the water for the night. Her eyes should be closed and her chest rising with each passing breath. She should be _alive_. 

Tears gathered in his eyes but he dared not reach to wipe them away, he could not find it within himself to release his hold on the child. He could feel his fingernails leaving deep half-moon indents in the cold skin. He could not let go. It was all his fault. He had chosen wrong and now this little girl’s life was brutally wrenched away from her along with all the others. The man from the local butcher’s shop may have given her that wound to her chest but in a way, he was the one to deliver the first blow, the one to set this dreadful series of events into motion. 

‘ _If only I had been more careful, more observant, less fucking naive...._ ’ Ifs and buts floated in his mind as tears fell onto Aoibh’s ghostly cherubic cheeks. They fell heavy and as if a dam had been broken, Ronan released a sob. The weight of the dead felt as though it was settling in the pit of his stomach, a burden of guilt swelling as more and more sounds of emotional turmoil escaped his lips. 

He threw his head back and screamed, but his cursing fell on deaf ears. There was no God on the island but the one who was ferrying his family’s souls back to the depths of the sea. 

He had no mother to raise him, no friends to assure him, and no sister to cherish him. No one was there. No one was listening. No one cared that he was completely and utterly alone.

Alone once again. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you know me and have heard me rant about Ronan’s past trauma then no you haven’t :)


End file.
